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DaRock98

Accountability tags... Where do you get them?

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We have an old out dated computer program that we print out accountability tags ourselves. On our card we print the members name, photo and department name on either a green card(interior) or a red card(exterior). I am looking for a new program to use because our printer is no longer working and has become obsolete. Does anyone have any suggestions or names of places they use?

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East fishkill had a very nice system when I was a member there. They used a simple card format on printed paper for your name rank and ID number, put a second blank card behind it, a sheet of paper with your medical/emergency information on it and laminated. That way I you were injured the EMS crew could cut open the tag and have everything they need. Not sure if they still use the system.

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We tried using East Fishkill’s system as well and it worked for a while, but water always found a way in overtime and destroyed the paper so we were always replacing the cards. We went with a hard (credit card) type of card that has dept. name, firefighters name, photo id, dept id, and interior / exterior on it. We then put it inside a hard plastic luggage tag holder green for interior red for exterior. We ended up buying a card printer which comes with design software and use it to make yearly dept. membership Ids as well as the gear tags.

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We tried using East Fishkill’s system as well and it worked for a while, but water always found a way in overtime and destroyed the paper so we were always replacing the cards. We went with a hard (credit card) type of card that has dept. name, firefighters name, photo id, dept id, and interior / exterior on it. We then put it inside a hard plastic luggage tag holder green for interior red for exterior. We ended up buying a card printer which comes with design software and use it to make yearly dept. membership Ids as well as the gear tags.

Do you have the name of this software?

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eMedia Card Designer came with evolis pebble 4 card printer.

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We tried the same thing Miami222 is talking about, and after our printer crapped out, we went back to engraved plastic tags frm My-Lor.com.

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My old department went through three variations of cards while I was there. First we had printed cards that a member made at his buisiness. THey were blue with black lettering and just had a name and our SS numbers. This was the days before identity teft. When that member sold his business we could no longer get hat card stock so we went to engraved tags similar to keyrings, which proved to be expensive as new members joined and we needed a single tag. After that we went with a program that prints ID cards, We bought the printer software and 1,000 cards. These cards were the best because it allowed us to add all sorts of features. When I was there the cards had the department logo, our picture and our certifications. As well as our name and ID number. All cards expired the at the end of April as that was our annual meeting and we could always get people there for updated photos and cards.

Some of the features we put on the cards were diferent color backgrounds for the pictures. Firefighters had Blue, Officers had Yellow, Probies had Orange and Associate members had Green. These were simple poster boards we bought at CVS. The certifications were in colored letteing and had 4 categories. Fire in Red, EMS in Blue, Haz Mat in Green and Specialties in Purple. This way Any IC that got my tag knew exactly what he could assign me to do. The back had a statement saying the card was department property and had to be surrendered on demand and also had the address to mail it back to if found.

I think the catalog we got the set up from was called IDVille. I worked out the cost and figured that the cards cost us about 37 cents to print both sides.

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I guess no one uses a county wide system like we do? It makes sense to have the same Accountability tags for all departments so its easier to find the info you needed without having to guess who has what type of card or what color red is here or blue is there...KISS

Our county fire coordinator has the software and machine in his office, you go and have your picture taken, they put a scan bar on it that has your medical info and training record. On the back they list the limportant certs you have like "FF2, Haz-Mat, EMT, ICS, NIMS, Ladder Ops, Rescue Ops, Investigation" Etc Etc for quick review. The colors are all the same for each department; green interior red exterior, blue EMS, orange is explorer.

When they need to they scan the card and it lists all medical info, emergency contacts, training records and department info.

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Dutchess county uses a county system but a lot of Dept's do there own my old company printed your photo name rank and man # with department name and on the back was your blue light card image on a real card like a credit card and you were given 3 1 is your ID the other 2 went on your gear for calls and they work really good forgot the name of it but you have to buy the cards and the printer for it to work

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In my hometown department we did something similiar (I believe they still do this). Your name, your designation (interior on green card stock or exterior on orange), and the department name on one side; the otherside is your name,physician, and emergency contact name and number. This is extremly basic, but great for departments that don't have a lot of money. I come from upstate, so I know all about the lack of funds. All you really need for this is a basic computer with Microsoft Word of Excel, and a printer capable of printing of card stock. You have to protect the tags with a high heat laminate, which you can get at most office supplie stores, along with the high heat laminator. You can also get the metal punch rings to protect the punch hole for the clips (forgive me, I don't recall where to get them). Cheap and easy is sometimes the best way to go. I moved away from my hometown almost 6 years ago, and my interior tags are still intact after all of the fires and all of the years of sitting in my glove box.

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